The Also People: Do what you want with him

After getting through nearly 50 novels in the Doctor Who New Adventures series in the past couple of years, I can categorically state that the best gag is in the non-aggression pact between the People and the Time Lords that is printed in The Also People by Ben Aaronovitch, where they definitely declare that they will not mess with each other in any way - with the single exception of the Doctor, and the People are allowed to do whatever they want with him, including and not limited to execution, and the Time Lords are cool with that.

These books did get very grim sometimes, with the Doctor's companions often tortured and hurt, but there are still some laughs on the far side of the next galaxy. 

Getting in early with the Knives

Even though it was heading to streaming in a couple of weeks, I still went and saw the new Knives Out film at the cinema the other week, and I did it for three distinct reasons:

1) Seeing movies in a theatre is rad. I love the popcorn, I love the big screen, I love making the effort.

2) I can concentrate more on what is happening on screen, because like everybody else in the world, I get easily distracted when watching anything at home. The phone goes in the pocket as soon as I'm in the theatre, and my full attention is devoted to the events of the film, which makes things a lot easier when a film has a lot of plot.

3) It's just nice to sit with a movie for a while, before everybody else in the world has seen it, and the endless hot takes begin. I can have a think about it, before the backlash, and the backlash to the backlash. Before all the endless think-pieces about What It all Means. They'll be unavoidable for a while, in news headlines and constant notifications, so it was nice to take a breath before it all kicked off. 

There are huge benefits in cutting yourself off from the wider discourse. I still see a lot of people writing off the Avatar movies because they don't leave a cultural footprint, but that's a feature, not a bug, for me, because I'll go and see some extraordinary imagery directed by one of the greatest action action of all time, and have a blast for three hours and never have to think about it again, and that sounds about right to me. 

I also just gave up all social media for a few days recently, because Quentin Tarantino said something fucking stupid in an interview, and even though Quentin Tarantino has been saying fucking stupid things in interviews for 30 years, my feeds were almost nothing but people saying how fucking stupid it was, and that they were never into his films anyway, and it was coming from everyone, including a lot of smart people who I love and respect, so I just tuned out of it altogether, just until everybody got it out of their system. (And if they were not on about that, they were pointing out that R Crumb is deeply, deeply problematic in nearly every way - no shit, Sherlock - and also that they were never into his comics anyway.)

Anyway, just to add to all the noise, I thought Wake Up Dead Man was terrific, with a mediocre mystery - the confessional scene early on gave everything away - some strong character work, and a handling of massive religious issues with a deft and deeply human approach.  

It might have taken me two weeks to come to that conclusion, but at least it's one I'm sure of now.

A small taste of immortality in the letter columns

While there are still plenty of regular comics that feature letter pages full of missives from readers, they're not the ubiquitous experience they once were. There was the general idea that when the internet came along, there was no need to print letters in the actual comics, and they could be filled with 'backmatter' instead.

But I still miss them, and always got a lot more out of them than I ever did from any message board rant or social media post. That move away from regular letters did shatter a fragile community of regular hacks, and the hundreds of thousands of other readers who saw these comments and criticisms.

They were an insight into a world that is terribly diluted now, and sometimes I read reprints and old comics and feel like I'm missing something without the letter columns, like the Zap Goes the Legion trade paperback put out by DC recently. 

It's hundreds of pages of Legion of Super-Heroes comics from the 60s and 70s,  and it's a book that covers some monumental changes in the super-teens, but sometimes it only feels like you're getting half the story. It's hard to keep track of who the leader is, or what is driving the sudden moves to restyle many of the main characters. There is some kind of distinct point where Shrinking Violet and Phantom Girl suddenly look radically different, and there is obviously a lot of talk about it going on, but it's all hidden away behind the comics.

But I also do miss the letters columns as something I can experience, without actually taking part in them. The very idea of sending a letter to a comic as a kid was prohibitively expensive, sending from the arse end of the world, and I was always so far behind - it would take months for the comics to show up in my local stores, so anything I had to say would be hopelessly dated. I still read all the letters, and felt a connection with all these fellow dorks, all over the world, but didn't really participate.

I made some feeble efforts over the years. I got my name in the late, lamented Neon movie magazine and even in an issue of Love and Rockets, because I entered competitions. I didn't win anything, except the pleasure of seeing my name there.

It's obviously a lot easier to send letters now that it can be done digitally, although the only time I really tried was when I wrote to Back Issue Magazine, and got in there. And just this year, 2000ad published a letter of mine. It was, of course, a complaint that I had to give it up, which was a little extraordinary - I just wanted Tharg to know that they were losing the loyal of readers for the most capitalist of reasons, and they put it in the prog.  

It's a tiny mark of immortality, and I see that when I can read the letters in old issues of Fantastic Four, and see a lot of familiar names. TM Maple and his ilk are long gone, but his name is there in print forever, and so is mine, in the tiniest of places.

Sergio Aragonés' Solo: Nobody stole my coat.

- Sergio Aragonés Solo 

Written and drawn by Sergio Aragonés 

Assistance from Mark Evanier, Stan Sakai, Tom Luth, Lee Loughridge

Don't do Whamageddon wrong

I saw some people in real life get genuinely upset when someone played Last Christmas within earshot the other day, and I didn't say anything at the time because they didn't want to hear it, but I was definitely thinking it - man, you're doing it wrong.

Whamageddon is just a piece of dumb fun, and getting agitated by dumb fun defeats the whole point of it. If something as silly as that gets your goat, maybe your goat deserves to be got. I'm not going to intentionally ruin the fun for anybody else, and I'm still playing the game, but it's just a game.

It would like getting upset when you get Rick-rolled. This still happens to me a couple of times a year and I am always abso-fucking-lutely delighted when it gets me. I never think it's not funny, and admire that I can still get fooled, even when I've been on full alert for it for more than a decade.

It's a grim world out there, children. Get your dumb fun where you can, and don't cry about it.

Bookcases of the Damned (part five of five): The most precious

My lovely wife has bought me a few bookcases over the years, but this was the first, in the first few years of our relationship. It's held a few different things over the years, but now it's where my absolute favourite books all live, safe behind a solid wood door.

This is where all the Love and Rockets are, and my Dorkin and Bagge books. All the regular 2000ads are boxed up down below, but those big beautiful hardback annuals, especially with the McMahon craziness, need to be at hand.

Last year I went through all the Big Book series that Paradox put out, and they're still absolute bangers, so they stay here too.

These are my favourite comics, these are the ones I would try to save if the house was burning down (and I'd got the kids to safety, I guess). I almost certainly wouldn't be able to pick up this whole bookcase and get it out the door with flames around me, but I'd probably still try.  

Bookcases of the Damned (part four of five): Keeping it in the closest

I can never resist a Criterion Closet video when I see them - some completely random cinematic creative getting to rave about the films that mean the most to them is something that will always grab my attention.

But I also think that closest looks so damn good, that I've gone and made my own mini version of the thing.

I'm definitely on Team Physical Media and still have hundreds and hundreds of DVDs. They used to live in bookcases out in the open, but now I've claimed some closet space for them, and have them lining the walls of that space. They also used to be in alphabetical order, but now they're all shoved in there randomly.

For the past couple of years I've been largely working from home, and have had DVDs playing in the background whole I work with distinct triple features in the background. The ones up in the cupboard are the films I've had playing this year, cinematic brilliance in the air as I do the job.

Down on the floor are all the movies I still have to watch, and the TV shows that I'm going to go through next year. That's a lot of hours. They might not be on a bookcase, and just piled up in the corner, but they probably deserve one. 

I'll never get to the Criterion closet, I barely see any Criterion DVDs or Blu Rays around these parts, but I can be happy with my own little version of it.

Bookcases of the Damned (part three of five): They're not all mine

My wife doesn't have the same hoarding habits as me, and only needs a couple of shelves for her books, although there are a considerable amount of cookbooks and such scattered throughout the house.

But this is where she keeps the things that show her own eclectic tastes - more thirst for classic literature than I've managed, although I feel like she's somehow stolen Joe R Lansdale from me. 

We do read some of the same books - we've both devoured all the Slow Horses books and obviously the Lansdale - but she's also has a taste for the Penguin editions of classic books. She also has books on financial literacy and how to win at chess.

There're not my choices, but I like the beauty of of her picks, and the things it says about her personality and priorities in life. Her books are just as sexy as mine.

Bookcases of the Damned (part two of five): Four colours and beyond

Most of the comics I still own are in dark, dry boxes under the bed and beneath the house. A couple of dozen large boxes are stuffed with hundreds and hundreds of individual issues, but all the hardbacks and graphic novels and trade paperbacks live here.

This bookcase was another 40th birthday present, the baby brother of yesterday's leviathan, but now houses nothing but comics. 

Odd gems and massive collections - I can read all the good Charley's War in one go, or indulge in hundreds and hundreds of pages of Eddie Campbell's Alec. The DC Solo book might be my favourite mainstream publication of the 21st century, and was bought in Brisbane for a bargain. 

There's lots and lots of Alan Moore, and a substantial chunk of beloved Marvel that I should probably be more shamed about. Luther Arkwright and Charles Burns and Batman, sharing the shelves. 

There are all my DC Digests tucked up the top, a favourite format that I genuinely find harder to read these days, but they still feel like supreme pop culture artefacts. There's loads and loads of Vertigo, because I'll always be a Vertigo kid.

It's another bookcase that has spilled beyond its borders, with a small space against the wall in the corner, where a substantial stack of Marvel Essential and DC Showcase books have grown, thousands of pages of comics, shoved into the corner. 

There are no comics up on top of this bookcase, just the book club survivors that I haven't given away or pushed onto poor unsuspecting friends.

This is not the biggest bookcase in the house, but there are universes in these shelves, entire histories and continuities. Comics give you so many stories, about all kinds of things, and they're right there, on these shelves heaving with story and art.

Bookcases of the Damned (part one of five): I always judge other people by their shelves

The biggest bookcase in the house lives in the corner of the living room, well away from the sunlight, and it holds all the treasures. It was a gift for my 40th birthday and for the past decade it's been where I keep the best hardcovers, the nicest looking editions and the books that have the most personal importance.

It's the nice books I bought overseas, that now remind me of visits to London, and Honolulu, and Stockholm. Apart from the big art books and the odd Clowes hardcover, there's not many comics in this bookcase. That's okay, because they fill every other shelf in the house, although those art books feature raw work by legends like Kirby and the Hernandez brothers and Joe Kubert - there's four extremely good looking books filled with nothing but Bolland art.

All the Kim Newmans are here, with the Mick Herrons pushing their way in there. There are lots of books about great movies and favourite directors, and some extremely selected publications about Dr Who and James Bond. 

The main organisational issue is size - the big, heavy books live down the bottom, the lighter paperbacks up the top. There is some calculated randomness - tastes of Elmore Leonard and Terry Pratchett keep the Moore and Morrison books apart, because I don't want no curse, and I have put a lot of thought into which Phillip Jose Farmer I want to show the world.

I like small doses of pop science and history, and have a lot more and far more dense books about the history of comic books, including a bunch of treasured TwoMorrows information dumps - their design work can also be breath-taking, making full use of the infinite possibilities of comic book art.

There are also magazines that are actually disguised books about punk music, and Pink Floyd and Empire's favourite movies, and some more odd bits of history in mags about samurais and shit. 

I mainly get the books of essays about Tarantino and the Coen Bros for the pictures, as valuable as the words can be. There are books of artworks inspired by films, and other books that are nothing but Superman and Batman covers, and they don't need any words at all.

I pretty much just buy any books that have anything to do with Twin Peaks and Mad Max that I see. 

Apart from some beloved paperbacks that have been read so much their spines are smashed to pieces, and all the Newman, Herron and farmer, there is not actually much fiction on these shelves, with non fiction books dominant, although I gotta have some Moorcock and Vonnegut, and there will always be a space for Rian Hughes' gorgeously ambitious XX.

Every space is full, I cram the smallest books into clear spaces, and these days I only a few toys in front of the books - there's the batmobiles up on the top shelves where the boy won't lose them, and some really nice Dalek dolls that my mate Kyle gave me for my last birthday. Most of my treasured childhood tools have been appropriated by the next generation, as they should be, and live somewhere in their room.

There is even extra stuff piled up on top, and I'll probably get killed one day by a Cor!! annual bouncing off my skull (as was once foretold in the ancient prophecies), but the giant dorky jigsaws might just leave a nasty gash.

And even more treasures down the side, all the very big books that from the likes of Spiegelman and Ware, the few Treasury edition comics I've managed to get, all the weirdly shaped comic strip collections. Down the bottom - under a box collecting the first 100 progs of 2000ad - my oldest, most precious box, which has been full of Invisibles comics for 30 years now.

I try not to be a judgmental prick in life, but I can't help judging people by their bookcases when I visit their homes. If you've only got three Dan Brows books and a Garfield, that tells me a lot.

There are a number of other bookcases around the house, and we'll get to most of them this week, but this is the one I show the world. This is the one that shows how I think, and what I think is important, and what I like to look at.

Uncanny X-Men: Couldn't hardly do worse.

- Uncanny X-Men Annual #14

Pencils by Art Adams 

Inks by  Dan Green, Bob Wiacek, Al Milgrom, Art Thibert, Steve Mancuse 

Words by Chris Claremont

Colors by Brad Vancata 

Letters by Tom Orzechowski

There is only now

Live in the moment, they tell me. You can't do anything about the past or the future, but you can deal with the now.

I hear this, but it hits particularly hard when you have kids, and you try to hold onto these moments of pure fucking joy and happiness, and they all slip away so fast when you're dealing with their latest tantrum or injury or hurt feeling. And sometimes the worst thing is that you know you're not appreciating these times because you're trapped in the miniature of everyday life, and all the chores and tasks that need doing, even as they slip through your fingers like wet sand in the water.

I want to live in this eternal now, and maybe I do. I just really need to stop and smell the roses, and enjoy the sound of laughing children while it's everywhere.

I'm finally dancing to the old musicals

I was never a theatre kid, and never watched musicals when I was young. They didn't have lasers and robots and time travel, they just had loads of people singing songs. My sisters watched things like Grease a lot, but the first musical I ever fell in love with was the Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Rocky Horror legit made me a better person, but was strictly one of a kind, and the musical genre was largely a mystery to me. And by the time I grew up into something resembling an adult, I was more interested in movies about gangsters and serial killers and shit like that.

And then, a few years ago, in a bid to widen my cinematic diet a little, I decided to check out some of the musicals that everybody agreed were the best of the best, and was delighted to find that everybody was right. Singing in the Rain really is very, very good.

I also, unfortunately, watched La La Land a few days after seeing Singing in the Rain, and the modern shoe shufflers do their best, but look like pale imitations compared to the eternal vigour of the old masters.

And now I love watching the old stuff with the kids, and find many of them have dated quite well - the unreality of people bursting into song is strangely eternal, and Donald O'Connor is literally still making 'em laugh, with his goofball antics.

I'm really not inspired to go out and see the Wicked movies or anything, it's just the old films I'm interested in. I feel like there's a strange kind of full stop with All That Jazz, and once you've got to that, what's left? Xanadu? 

I did try Xanadu because I have now become a bonafide Gene Kelly fan, and will watch any of his movies, because even if the plot is dull and predictable, the movies are always full of gorgeous, stylish  people doing remarkable things with their feet

Maybe when I get older I will get more into the modern musical, but will take the original West Side Story over Spielberg's overly slick remake, it's just got more snap, and more pizazz.

After all, we could all use a bit more pizzaz, and movies that were made nearly a century ago sill have that as they tapdance into my heart.

To keep Bond alive, you've got to learn to let go

There is something darkly hilarious about the conundrum that the new owners of the James Bond franchise are struggling with, where they don't know how to relaunch the movies after killing off Daniel Craig's Bond at the end of the last movie.

As if it bloody matters! As if it ever bloody mattered. The next guy can just roll in on his own charm, looking sexy as fuck, killing the bad guys, and literally nobody will care that he blew up at he end of the last film. 

It was a bad idea to kill him off in the first place - absolutely nobody wants to walk out of a Bond film feeling teary-eyed about his noble sacrifice, they want to walk out humming the Bond tune and talking about how neat it was when he shot that dickhead in the kneecaps and jumped off the tallest building in Thailand. 

But even though they had an extraordinarily long time to think about this - No Time To Die was in the can for ages before it appeared at the movies, which raised false hopes that they really had considered all this - the filmmakers still killed Bond off, and are now fretting about how to carry on. 

What it does remind me of is the way DC Comics can't let go of its history whenever it restarts its universe. It makes a big deal about the fresh start with every reboot, but can't concede that recent events in Superman or Green Lantern comics 'don't count' anymore, so they twist their existences into knots to make everything fit.

The post-Crisis DC universe was doomed because some things happened and some didn't, and nobody was sure what the fucking deal was with Hawkman anymore.

Comics lead the way in mass mediums, making mistakes that the rest of the entertainment industry only pick up decades later. But there should be no pride in coming first in this race, because it's still stupid as hell.

The Daniel Craig films have their faults, and doubled down on them through the years, but they were a specific era. So have the new guy come out and beat up people on a beach, wink into the camera, and then get on with things. It's how Bond rolls.